Anti-Water Charges' Five Now in Jail 13 Days

Free the Protestors - Jail the Bankers

The Government acting on behalf of corporate and financial power who have set their eyes on our Water have disgracefully jailed 5 citizens of this country because they said No to Austerity. We demand their freedom immediately. The five are: Derek Byrne, Bernie Hughes, Michael Batty who are imprisoned for 27 days and Paul Moore and Damien Oâ€™Neill who are imprisoned for 56 days.

There is clearly one law for the rich and one law for the rest of us. Where are the bankers and developers who bankrupted this country and led to widespread hardship and a huge increase in suicides in this country, deaths which have devastated families.
And what of the people who have died for lack of resources in our health system and of those evicted from their homes. It is time we stood up to this undemocractic sham and demand our country back from the claws of the elite.

Keep an eye out on social media and any websites related to the campaign against water charges for info on upcoming protests against the jailed 5.

To lighten the tone, here's a special xmas episode of the FKN news.
I think we all need a laugh after the miserable year that we've had so far courtesy of FG/labour.

WARNING:
If you are easily offended, very religious, lacking in a sense of humour, overly serious, or alternatively, pride yourself on how highly intellectual and sophisticated you are then might I humbly suggest you don't click on the video. You probably have better things to be doing!

Below we reproduce a handwritten communication we received from one of the members of the Peace Team that sabotaged a US troop transporter at Shannon warport last Tuesday morning, 20th December 2011. We have verified that this person participated in this action.

Barrister Leo Mulrooney to ex-Sgt James Gill: “Complete the now well-known phrase 'Give me your name and address or I'll...' “Ex-Sgt James Gill : “I don't understand the question”Barrister Leo Mulrooney:“Do you know what I'm referring to when I say those words”Ex-Sgt James Gill: “No”Leo Mulrooney: - “'Give me your name and address or ...' “Judge Margaret Heneghan interrupts: “He said 'No', next question”

Last Friday saw retired Sgt James Gill awarded €33,000 plus legal costs by Judge Margaret Heneghan for a defamation case that he took against prominent Shell to Sea campaigner Pat O'Donnell. Mr Gill claimed that Mr O'Donnell accused him at a protest at Bellanaboy on November 3rd 2006, while other protesters and gardaí were in the area, of stealing diesel and smuggling tyres across the border. Mr O'Donnell denied saying those comments to Gill but the Judge believe the word of Gill and made the award.

However James Gill is also the Garda with probably the longest and most involved history of any of the Gardaí that have policed the Corrib Gas Project. He sat on the Shell's Project Monitoring Committee for 5 years, his brother's scaffolding firm AGS was employed by Shell and I have personally witnessed him viciously assault campaigners on a number of occasions. I wish that I didn't feel the need to write this negative article about a Garda who doesn't police for Shell anymore, but that thisman's good name was valued at €33,000 is an absolute disgrace.

What happened in
Court

Last Wednesday saw the hearing of
the case. In the case Mr Gill claimed that Mr O'Donnell had accused him of being a thief but this was denied by Mr O'Donnell. Mr O'Donnell said that on the morning in question he had engaged in banter with other protesters and had referenced diesel which had been stolen from him previously in 97 or 98. Mr O'Donnell claimed that he had said that it's easier for people to steal diesel because all the Gardaí were up protecting Shell. He also said that he had said that the Gardaí uphold the law one day and break it the next, referring to the fact that the Gardaí were being well-behaved that day as there was politicians present but that other days they would beat up the protestors. Mr O'Donnell denied that any of this was directed at Mr Gill specifically.

In evidence Mr Gill stated that after Mr O'Donnell had made the comments that other protesters began making similar comments and that this has caused him a lot of stress. He felt that his credibility had been undermined, and that the comments would “sully his reputation” and felt it would hurt his children,“if their father was named a thief”. He stated that a gastric ulcer which he had had previously had been exasperated as a result of the comments and that he ended up with symptoms of Post traumatic stress disorder.

Under cross-examination from Mr O'Donnell barrister Leo Mulrooney, Mr Gill stated that this defamation case was not about money, that it was about his reputation. Twice in his cross-examination Mr Mulrooney attempted to introduce element of the infamous 'rape-tape', of which Mr Gill was the main player. First of all Mr Mulrooney attempted to ask Mr Gillif he had ever had discussions with other Gardaí on how to present evidence in court. This was a rather obscure reference to the 'rape-tape', which only someone who had listened to the 'rape-tape' would have seen where it was going. However obviously Judge Heneghan had done her homework, immediately shutting down that line of questioning saying that only relevant matters were to be discussed.

For his second attempt later on, Mr Mulrooney tried a more direct approach asking Mr Gill to complete the well-known phrase 'Give me your name and address or I'll...' “. However Mr Gill feigned ignorance and in a most blatant lie stated that he didn't know what Mr Mulrooney was talking about. Mr Mulrooney then asked if Mr Gill was serious that he didn't know what was being spoken about seeing as it had been front page news for a week and had been raised in the Dáil a number of times. At this Mr Gill's barrister Seamus Ruane jumped to his feet objecting, stating that if Mr Mulrooney was referring to the events of the 31stof March then they had no relevance to the case that was being tried. Mr Mulrooney argued that the subject being spoken about was of absolute relevance in ascertaining Mr Gill's good reputation.

Friday 25th November saw over 5 hours of Shell's peat and stone haulage completely blocked by campaigners, and no arrests were made. First thing in the morning four campaigners had trucks blocked for over an hour and a half, and later on one person climbed on top of a peat truck outside Shell's Bellanaboy refinery, remaining there for 3 and a half hours stopping all haulage.

Fair Hotels is an initiative of hotel workers employed in Fair Hotels throughout Ireland and trade union representatives.
Hotels listed on www.fairhotels.ie were invited to participate in the Fair Hotels campaign by their own staff and their staffs' representatives. Each of the hotels listed on www.fairhotels.ie has agreed to participate.
Our objective is to support and promote quality employment in the hotel industry in Ireland.

For years, a number of Irish movements have stood in solidarity with the struggle for justice, dignity, equality and freedom of the popular movements in Colombia. Now, hearing of the case of political persecution against the Water Rights movement, Colombian organisation have expressed their solidarity with the struggle of the Irish people. Peasant organisations of Cauca Valley and a broad coalition of over 50 organisations of indigenous, Afros, peasants, women and workers from the Southern jungle of Putumayo, together with refugees in Europe, have issued two statement expressing their unconditional support with those who struggle and reminding the government of Ireland of their obligation to respect the rights of the people in Ireland.

Eight housing activists were today acquitted by the Dublin Criminal Court of Justice, relating to a case spanning back seven months ago, when the charge against them of trespass was thrown out of court.

All eight accused had initially set about into investigating whether or not it was feasible to open up, and re-do, one of the 80 unused flats on Charlemont Street, that had been lying empty for over two years or more.

Eight housing activists were today acquitted by the Dublin Criminal Court of Justice, relating to a case spanning back seven months ago, when the charge against them of trespass was thrown out of court.

All eight accused had initially set about into investigating whether or not it was feasible to open up, and re-do, one of the 80 unused flats on Charlemont Street, that had been lying empty for over two years or more.

On the weekend of 23-25 January, Irish actors, musicians and activists descended on Wales for a weekend of solidarity with WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning) and her family.

The first Truthfest in January 2014 was the brainchild of Irish actor and activist Donal O'Kelly, an idea hatched after he met members of Manning's family during a visit to Dublin organised by Irish Australian activist Ciaron O'Reilly in collaboration with Afri (Action from Ireland) in November 2013. The links forged during that visit have been maintained and strengthened through a series of exchange visits since that time, most recently this 2nd Manning Truthfest.

Ciaron O'Reilly was one of five Pitstop Ploughshares activists who disabled a US Navy war plane at Shannon airport in 2003. Read about Chelsea Manning and Shannon Airport here: http://wp.me/P42I6Q-iF

After the relatively large turn-out to the Anti-Water charges protests over a week ago on Saturday the 31st, the government is worried that their propaganda hasn't worked as well as it should so in response they have launched a new dirty tricks campaign to discredit the Anti-Water charges campaign. They are using the same strategy as that used in the Corrib Gas issue in Mayo over the past decade where the strategy was to criminalise the protests in the eyes of the public.

In 2012 public opposition forced the ditching of a plan for a "retirement village" on the side of the Dublin mountains, isolated from services and public transport and cut off by the M50, in an area normally zoned for agriculture and public amenity and widely used by the public. A previous plan for a private school on the site had been rejected for similar reasons in 2005. After the 2014 local elections the plan came back in a lightly tweaked form, with the developer's sister among a number of newly elected councillors supporting the project. A proposal to amend the development plan to include this project is due to be voted on this Tuesday evening, February 10th. Meanwhile some interesting shenanigans have developed.

TTIP is an undermining of hard won labour rights, citizen consumer and environmental protections and an erosion of the notion of democracy. We need to resist this blatant corporate power and resource grab Now. Meeting in Galway this week discussed and highlighted the insidious and secretive corporate and government collusion against EU citizenry that is TTIP. A report of the meeting follows..

Integrity Ireland which was setup to expose and fight corruption in our legal
and justice system has written an Open Letter to President Higgins because of
the unprecedented obstalces and obstructions that they have encountered.

The open letter reproduced below is seeking the protection of the Presidential Office in the
event we have to arrest two of our most senior judges for criminal conspiracy on Friday January
30th next..

Michael Hudson, interviewed on real news network discusses the class war starting in greece and the panic among the Euro rich and powerful that the rich might actually be taxed for a change rather than crippling the labour force and the poor with endless austerity, and how the finance ministers of currently right wing governments of spain, finland, Portugal, Ireland and germany are determined to make an example of greece to avoid contagion of these dangerous ideas which would likely lead to such governments losing upcoming elections to left wing parties

“No one deserves to live like this”
A poster I came across on a billboard recently, juxtaposed by the wasteland where one of our block of flats used to sit, where working class families used to live happily, side by side, before they were all socially cleansed from the area, and for what? Already a year has passed since they were pulled down to the ground, and all we have to show for it now is a lousy carpark—desperate!

Currently, there are over 80 unused empty units in Tom Kelly Flats, some of which have been empty for over five years or more, 3 and 4 bedroom flats too.

We Americans (conditioned in the Hebrew tradition) have learned to see enemies in Biblical terms as one-sidedly evil as Satan. It takes a mass media of some very sophisticated accomplishment to continually portray people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, several Middle Eastern leaders as Satan. One needs to be somewhat steeped in the Biblical Literature to create such black and white conclusions. This is one legacy the Bible has bequeathed to modern politics—the absolutism of naming enemy in terms of good versus absolute evil. Israel plays a master game of such portrayal of their supposed enemies. The current leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad is the new version of Zionist Satan, but even this casting of totally evil Muslim figure is not good enough—we have a new entity that does the most obviously sensational sins—behead journalists and engage in egregious forms of violation—the ISIS/ ISIL phenomenon that America magically armed and some claim even trained (see in alternative media) and magically uses to create even more authoritarian war powers to an already criminal torture state that Barack Obama has no power to quell.

Call-out for students for this autumn's MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at Maynooth - please circulate!

We have a lot going on at the MA - a talk next week "Gypsy rebellion? Leadership, NGOs and activism among Spanish gitanos"; in April John Holloway is giving a two-day seminar "Think Hope, Think Crisis" and not long after that we're co-organising the "Joining the dots" Grassroots Gathering in Dublin - all part of a wider Dublin Spring of resistance and creation bubbling up from below.

Shannonwatch are urging their supporters to come to Ennis District Court on Tuesday February 24th to support TDs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace who attempted to inspect a US military plane at Shannon last July. Their alleged offence is illegal entrance into a restricted area of the airport, and their action was in response to the failure of the authorities to inspect US aircraft at Shannon.

Shannonwatch have repeatedly called for an end to the US military use of Shannon. They also call for inspection of all military and suspected CIA aircraft at the airport for as long as they are being allowed to pass through.

The Right2Water campaign is shocked by the jailing of five water protesters for contempt of court today (Thursday, 19th February). Bernie Hughes, Derek Byrne and Michael Batty were all sentenced to 28 days in prison while Paul Moore and Damien O’Neill were given 56 days each.

Right2Water representatives were in court for the sentencing, which they described as “an unnecessary and provocative decision brought about by an unfair water charge that has already been rejected and cannot work.”

The courts decision today to further remand Seamus Daly into custody, based on the assertions by the prosecution that a further 6 weeks was needed to obtain analytics and perhaps up to a further 4 months to obtain other material from the 26 Counties can only be viewed as a stalling tactic and disingenuous.